A tip of the cap to my boss for sending along this article about Rhea Mayolo, Maryland's "unofficial voice of the stimulus."

If you watch Rhea's video on YouTube, in which she talks about how she went from working for a trust manufacturing plant and waitressing while living off food stamps and energy assistance to a career as a field inspector with Century Engineering, you will be linked to all sorts of similar short videos of different people saying similar things. The bottom line: "The stimulus worked -- just look at me!"

If Rhea is the voice of the stimulus in Maryland, perhaps I am the voice against it. It is a title I wear proudly, for just as those who support the $787B stimulus package can come up with a few short video clips promoting their accomplishments I can come up with a few clever blog posts that point out their failures. I mean, come on -- I've already done five of them!

Okay, okay, I admit that a few opinionated blog posts with a few startling facts and figures don't exactly make a convincing argument to someone who firmly believes that, "Yes we can!" But I would also point out that a few YouTube videos of people wearing hardhats aren't going to sway many people either. Human interest stories are, in my opinion at least, a fairly irrelevant way to get your point across. Sadly, they seem to be the chosen means of expression for those who represent the Left.

Alright, enough opinion for the moment. I now direct you, fair reader, to an article I find completely unbiased[1] that states in plain English that "the national economy hasn't seen any net gain in jobs since the stimulus bill was passed."

Here's the thing: I don't want that to be true. I don't want President Obama's plan to be such an expensive, spectacular failure. I simply am willing to recognize that it is. So I find Bill Greener's comment (found in paragraph 15 of the article that inspired this whole blog post) a little bittersweet.

True, I may trust conservatives more than liberals when it comes to managing the economy, but the truth is I really don't trust anyone with a task this important, and I dislike the idea of eagerly anticipating a rival's failure so you get to move in more of your own people. This isn't a game. The winners and losers are very, extremely real.

I've never liked having to vote for one guy just because I don't like the only other option, but thems the breaks, for now at least. I want to be able to celebrate the little victories without knowing the incredible and ruinous expense which accompanies them. But the more time I spend looking into this whole stimulus thing, the more I find myself shaking my head in disgust.

[1] I call this article unbiased because, as I was reading through it the first time, I felt that it was leaning ever so slightly towards the Left. However, given my own political leanings, this is generally a good indication that it is, in fact, dialing straight down the center.